BOOKstore Economics
4/10/202641 min
How do bookstores choose the books they stock, and how does that affect what customers read? It may not seem like it, but every shelf in a bookstore is a highly valuable and contested piece of commercial real estate. And for every new book that a bookstore decides to stock, there are thousands of others that did not make the cut. So how do bookstores make those decisions? And how will the Planet Money book fare under the discerning eyes of the booksellers, the final gatekeepers in the long gauntlet of the publishing industry?
Today on the show: the third episode in our series. Planet Money sets out to actually sell a book. We burrow behind the bookstore shelves to learn the secret codes that publishers use to try to convince booksellers to carry the book, from little mom and pops to airport juggernauts. There will be corporate intelligence networks, bargain bin shenanigans, and a giant industrial saw chewing up books by the thousands. Call it Pulp Non-fiction.
Related:
- Fisher Nash’s Substack
- Episode 1: Inside a BOOK auction
- Episode 2: Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain
- Series: Planet Money makes a book
Live show tour and book info. / Subscribe to Planet Money+
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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
Music: NPR Source Audio - “A Peculiar Investigation,” “Round Round,” and “Neighbourhood Watcher.”
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
This message comes from Capital Group. Some of the best lessons don't come from a classroom, they come from experience. On The Power of Advice, a new podcast series from Capital Group, you'll hear from CEOs, investors, and founders about how they built careers, took risks, and reinvented themselves. If you're starting your own journey, this is the kind of advice you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Group, Inc.
Alex Goldmark· Host0:25
Hi, it's Alex Goldmark here. Thank you to everybody who pre-ordered our book. You are helping make this a success. The poster that should come with it will ship soon. It was not supposed to ship with the book, and we should have been clearer about that. If you filled out the form on our book website, thank you, you should have gotten a confirmation email. But if you didn't do that or you didn't get an email, there is still time to get the poster. Send us an email, and we will send you a link to fill out the form to get the poster. You will need to have proof of purchase that you bought it before April 6th, and an address in the United States. Email us at planetmoney@npr.org. Planetmoney@npr.org, put poster in the subject line, and do that before April 17th. Thank you for your patience, and thank you very much for supporting this big book project.
Speaker 01:13
This is Planet Money from NPR.
Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi· Host1:19
For most of my life, whenever I walked into my local bookstore, I never gave much of a thought to how that day's particular assortment of books